Annual battle with Christmas lights :-)

[bebe]

Christmas lights -

Why is it every year, without fail, the lights on the trees have sections that are out, the lights on the outside balcony garlands
have lights out. My fireplace mantel garlands lights have to be replaced. Is this just planned obsolescence? ha ha

One tree (9 1/2ft) I bought as a pre-lit tree. Not cheap, replaced a 12ft. Last year I had to send 1 of 4 sections back to the seller (Classic Tree) because there was no way we could figure out how to replace burned out bulbs. The instructions just don't work !! Soooo frustrating year after year. This year it was "lights out" on about 6 branches. After spending 2 hours messing with it, I cried Uncle and slapped on a 100 light strand of Wally World's mini lights. Problem covered up, not exactly solved.

So next year maybe we'll buy an unlit tree and put our own lights on it. But those will go out too. Now hubby says hey, let's use those old screw-in lights like we had as kids. (we're old!!) I don't like those, I think they are officially called C-9's. I like the tiny, little lights but I don't feel like facing this battle every year.

So, Ps'ers whatta ya'll use?

 

[Cind11]

We bought a new pre-lit tree after Christmas three years ago. The first year we used it we had sections of it going out just like you describe. We got it from Litehouse Pools. My DH then bought this "gun" type thing called the Light keeper Pro that is supposed to somehow fix the lights. Somehow it completes the circuit. It does work somewhat. Then the second year we had a huge section go out and we had already decorated the tree with our probably 300 ornaments and even the Light Keeper wasn't helping. We had to undecorate the entire thing and my DH ended up taking sections of the tree in for them to fix. I could have cried. And that year the new trees were somehow made so that now an entire section will never go out!! There somehow will never be an incomplete circuit. I feel your pain!!!

And you know what? I loved the old big lights. When I was growing up, we had so many cool colors of lights. Some of the lights were opaque and some clear. And you could have some individual lights that would blink. You didn't need to have a whole strand go off and on. I miss those lights!!!

 

[texaskj]

I have a corner lot and line my front and side flower beds with C9s in those stakes that you just push into the ground. The lights are alternating red and white. I can do it by myself in about 30 minutes with NO ladders. It takes maybe 10 minutes to undo.
I learned not to ever get a pre-lit tree when my poor father had to spend numerous hours unwinding the non-working lights on a Paul Bunyan display tree my mother got for half off at Dillard's.

 

[TooPatient]

I was taught about this in a science class a few years ago. If I'm remembering correctly, it has to do with how the strand of lights are wired. If it is in series and one light bulb goes out, all the other light bulbs after that one on the wire go out too (broken circuit). If they are in parallell and one bulb goes out, all the rest stay lit.


Note --- It has been a few (5-10) years so I may have switched parallell & series.... anyway, if you are buying lights you can look for the ones that only have individual bulbs die instead of sections.

 

[MichelleCarmen]

Ugh, I just realized we didn't bring our lights over when we moved. They're still in storage. Shoot. What now? Ugh. No point in having a christmas tree, though, as our kitten is a monster and probably would chew apart all the ornaments and the light cords. Bad kitty. Bad, bad kitty. Where is he? Oooh, off cuddling & sleeping on the chair and pretending to be innocent.

Can't wait to decorate for Christmas. At least we did bring all our other holiday stuff w/us!

 

[iLander]

Every year, we throw the fresh tree away, with the lights still on. Next year, we buy more lights. At about $10 to buy new lights, it's not worth it. They are designing them now without replaceable bulbs, so that we all will do just that. They want to sell more lights.

My grandparents had the same three strings for over 10 years. Just bought new little bulbs (they were all universal back then).

We had an artificial tree for a while. Top of the line, with "2500 tips!". I soon discovered that every SINGLE one of those stinking tips had to be twisted and straightened by hand, to make the thing look right. Threw that one away (no on would buy it at the yard sale). Actually, put it out for trash and someone took it.

After 27 years of marriage and countless trees (one year I put up 5 trees) I've decided the struggle is not winnable.

 

[Strawdermangrl]

So, the way it worked was after numerous years of frazzled peeps trying to detangle, find that 'missing' bulb and slews of profanity, we found these awesome little plastic wrap thingys. <--- Official name, too.

In all seriousness, though- think the wind up thing that you put the hose on- now shrink it and put some Christmas lights on it. I know, why didn't I think of that and make the $$$ off it...sigh. But truly, makes the whole process stress free and literally painless. It is even easy to put them on the tree- you can walk around the tree and feed them off the 'thingy' to the 'light hanger-upper' <-- Also official name.

 

[bebe]

Ahh, the "light gun" - have one, doesn't help or we are not using it correctly.

I think most light strands manufactured today are supposed to be if one goes out, the others stay lit.
Not a chance !!!

I put our trees up too early to have a real tree. So artificial it is, but we will be considering what to do about next year.
Unlit tree and throw away lights maybe?

Does anyone use C-7 lights? Are those screw-in?

Last year I cut the old, burned out mini lights off one tree, so not worth my time undoing them from the tree. Love that idea of just
throwing away the lights every year!!

One thing that I have thought of is I wonder if the heat (hot Texas summers) in our attic has anything to do with
burning out these lights every doggone Christmas !!

I know I'm not the only person that has this light battle every holiday season, it just amazes me there isn't an answer !!